The Other Side of the Veil
by Ridkey
Summary: It's been ten years since the Spirit Rangers vanished from Lookout Valley. Peace has settled in, fear fading into memory. But no one knows what depths their heroes took to protect the world. Now the seal has broken, and The Prince has escaped. The original Spirit Rangers lay comatose in the hospital. It's time for new heroes to step forward and finish what the God of Fear started.


_A quick note: Certain elements and in one case, a character, have been taken from an obscure adventure/horror game series called the Chzo Mythos. Familiarity with these games is not needed, and might actually make things more confusing for you due to the changes I've made. But if you like retro-themed horror games, I do recommend the series. They're pretty fun. That said, hope you enjoy the fic._

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The door opened. Old hinges and older wood creaked as she pushed. Dust scattered in the light of her head lamp, but sunlight shone through bookshelves inside the old room. The young woman frowned.

"Nobody's been here in years," she said to the silence. The other locations she'd explored, they'd been searched, dug through, for evidence and clues and so much worse, but this building seemed untouched.

"And this was their headquarters." She took a hesitant step into the room. "How did they miss this place?"

Well, she couldn't say she wasn't grateful. All the things left behind were things she could examine herself. Maybe here were the answers she was looking for.

It was a library back when the Faithful owned this building. The books were still on the shelves. Rows of them, coated in dust, their spines almost unreadable in the morning light. The curtains on the windows were half opened, black fabric on the outside, deep red on the inside. They were motionless as she stepped through the space. No one was there, but she still held her breath.

"There were a lot of people in this place once," the young woman said to herself. "Now it's only me."

She was barely a woman in truth, only steps over the threshold of her twenties. Long dark hair flowed from the ponytail on the top of her head. Some of it slipped from the band of the headlight, needing to be pushed out of the way of her gray eyes. The freckles on her cheeks followed down her neck below her collared polo shirt, coating her exposed forearms and the backs of her hands.

Reaching into the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out her phone. A few taps and the camera began to record. She cleared her throat.

"Investigation, round… five, I think? July 28. This is one of the old libraries for the Faithful. I have no idea how the police or the Rangers never found this place… it seems completely untouched."

Approaching a shelf, she ran her fingers down a spine on one of the books, exposing some of the title.

"The Science of Fear…" She turned to another book. "Eve's Bargain…" Another. "The Blessings of Pain… cheerful stuff they were reading."

Some books were handwritten. Entire shelves of moleskin journals, leather bound books, spiral bound notebooks and the same kind of composition books she'd used in elementary school. It was easy to forget that the Faithful had existed in her time, ten years ago, before they and the master they worshipped were defeated. Sometimes it seemed like a bad dream, a story from a horror movie. But they were real. And so was she.

"I don't even want to know what's in these things." She turned away from the shelves. "But I guess I'll have to read through them eventually. Maybe I should get some help."

She laughed at that idea. Yeah, help. Where was she going to find that? The Power Rangers hadn't been seen in Lookout Valley, California since… well, since they took down the Faithful. But they were probably the only ones who would understand this situation. Anyone else would be too risky.

"There must be something in here I haven't seen before," she said to the camera as she walked between the shelves. "Something different from all the other places they claimed."

Stopping at the end of a shelf, she scanned the library through the lens of her phone. The library was big enough to have a study area, a collection of dark wood tables and chairs scattered over the pale wooden floor. Some of the chairs were pushed out. One had fallen, and a thick layer of dust coated the back. At the far edge of the sitting areas, a desk pressed against the wall next to a door. The afternoon sunlight hadn't reached it, and the notebook that laid there looked just as crisp as her notebooks back home.

"That's gotta be important," she said, striding towards the desk.

The handwriting was vaguely familiar. She ran her hand over the words, scraping away the dust from the ink. The more she looked at it the more familiar it was. She'd seen photos of books like this online.

"The Father's lost diary," she mumbled. It had been here the whole time?

Without thinking, she read the words aloud.

"_The__ time has come. For generations, humanity has grown soft, and spiteful. They reject the lessons of fear, hiding in cocoons of oblivion. Two years ago, our King sent to us his most precious gift, the Prince, who in the King's wisdom he granted the power to teach all of his guidance. Now, as the veil thins and our enemies fade, we must hold fast our faith. Soon all will know the name of the King…_"

She frowned. "Guess he was working on a sermon when the final battle went down…" They must've evacuated quick when they learned Cabadath had vanished…

Looking at the paper again through the phone screen, she paused. The date had been written on the top of the page.

"July 28," she mumbled. "Ten years to the day."

The veil thins, the paper said. She glanced over her shoulder.

Wood smashed far away. Her heart could've stopped. She twisted towards the door now far behind her. Something crunched, something shattered. Something heavy hit the floor, once and twice and three times. No, that wasn't hitting, that was walking.

Frozen, she couldn't breathe, listening. The floor shook with every step, or maybe it was her that was shaking. It was getting closer, and closer, heading towards the library.

She stepped back into the desk, cold sweat trickling down her neck. Awful images flashed before her mind's eye. She couldn't be caught here, no matter what was closing in on her.

The door beside the desk was unlocked. She stumbled inside, closing the door behind her as fast yet quiet as she could. The closet stunk of dust and rust but she'd handle it. Her phone slipped from her fingers and her heart could've stopped as it hit the ground. Without thinking, she kicked it with the side of her foot, knocking it into a crack between two boxes.

Covering her mouth with her hands, she waited.

The door to the library slammed open.


End file.
